Parliament adopts amendment that declares country’s abundant clean supplies are ‘a public good managed by the state’ and ‘not a market commodity’Slovenia has amended its constitution to make access to drinkable water a fundamental right for all citizens and stop it being commercialised.

Estimated 20bn barrels of oil found in Texas’s Permian Basin, three times larger than the Bakken oilfields of North Dakota, could be worth as much as $900bnA huge deposit of untapped oil, possibly the largest ever discovered in the US, has been identified by the US Geological Survey (USGS) in west Texas.

A coalition of bivalve enthusiasts is trying to revive oyster farming in water that is beset by trash and raw sewageThe oysters in the Hudson River around the Statue of Liberty are some of the plumpest and fastest growing Crassostrea virginica in the whole of New York harbor. Fitting it should be that way, at least in contrast to the East River, between Manhattan and Brooklyn, where untreated effluent is allowed to flow out during storms in what New York authorities describe as a “rain event”.

Thousands of dead fish were seen on the surface of the Shinnecock Canal in Southampton, New York, on Monday, after becoming trapped inside overnight. Tom Jones, a marine adviser at Hampton Watercraft, shot drone footage of the bizarre occurrence. It is believed the fish were chased into the canal by larger predatory fish and then became trapped inside when the canal shut early Monday morning. The fish eventually dispersed back into the bay when the canal opened later on Monday Continue reading...

Officials believe the bunker fish, trapped after Shinnecock canal closed, may have been chased there by predatory fish and died due to lack of dissolved oxygenThe surface of the Shinnecock canal in Southampton, New York, was glistening and silver on Monday. One local told CBS New York that at first glance, it seemed like the canal was covered in frost.The actual cause was much more grim: the water was covered almost completely in dead fish. Continue reading...

More than 50 US companies have signed a pledge to commit to paying the same salaries to women and men; here, we profile four of themThe debate around fairer pay for women feels more prominent and urgent than ever. Yet, despite this momentum, new estimates suggest the gender pay gap won’t be closed anytime soon. A new report from the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take up to 170 years for the world’s women to earn wages that are equitable to men’s.While that’s the global picture, things aren’t much better at home in the US. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, in 2015, female full-time employees earned about $0.79 for every dollar made by full-time male employees. For minorities, the data is even more disparaging: African American women earn $0.64, Native American women earn $0.59 and Latinas earn $0.54. Continue reading...

Activists will march on airport on Saturday in protest over third runway, with some planning action that could delay flightsHeathrow airport is braced for protests and disruption on Saturday as climate campaigners join locals in a march on the airport, with one group planning direct action that could delay or cancel flights.

Foreign minister, Boris Johnson, signs global pact to cut carbon emissions in LondonThe UK has become the 111th country to ratify the Paris climate agreement, which aims to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change by cutting carbon emissions.The foreign minister, Boris Johnson, who has flirted with climate scepticism, signed the pact in London on Thursday after a parliamentary deadline passed on Wednesday night, with no objections raised. Continue reading...

Government changes to rules on claimants’ costs could make it harder for anyone to challenge public projects, warn campaigners, lawyers and politiciansEnvironmental legal challenges face being hit by the “chilling effect” of new government rules that remove a cap on claimants’ costs, according to campaigners, lawyers and politicians.They warn that the changes could deter organisations and individuals challenging projects such as fracking wells, HS2 and the Heathrow third runway for fear of racking up huge court costs. Continue reading...

We’d like to find out about air pollution around the world. How does it affect your daily life? Share your views and experiencesAir pollution has risen by 8% in in five years with fast-growing cities in the developing world worst affected, according to the WHO. We want to explore its impact on the daily lives of people around the world. If you live in a city that is affected by toxic air or you work in air quality control, we’d like to hear from you.Two weeks ago, India’s capital city, New Delhi, was effectively shut down because of air pollution. The threat to citizens from smog in Delhi was judged so great that traffic was rationed, coal-fired power stations closed and diesel generators suspended. This week schools were closed in Iran’s capital, Tehran after a blanket of smog was blamed for a string of deaths and in Beijing, students have been told to stay indoors. Air quality in London is among the worst in Europe, and is illegally in breach of EU limits. Continue reading...

Award-winning wildlife photographer, Sue Flood, is one of the world’s only women to specialise in polar photography. Her images capture wildlife, people and landscapes in the Arctic and Antarctica

German manufacturer Qmilk is making use of Germany’s two million tonnes of waste milk by turning some of it into toilet rollA premium-priced toilet roll made from waste milk will be hitting Italian supermarket shelves amid the Christmas paraphernalia this winter.Carezza di Latte – which translates as “milk caress” – is a collaboration between German fabric innovators Qmilk and Italian company Lucart, one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of paper and tissue products. Continue reading...

A cohort of US delivery services want to change the way we view, cook and eat ‘imperfect’ produce that grocery stores regularly banishKing-sized kiwis, curvy squash and smaller-than-usual apples and limes. That was the “ugly” produce count in boxes of fruits and vegetables Deborah Levine recently received at her home in the San Francisco Bay Area. While most of the produce she gets in her biweekly deliveries is “very normal”, she recalls one particular veggie. It was like a siamese carrot, but with part of it broken off, it looked like it “didn’t have its leg”.Related: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests Continue reading...

COP22 host leads by example in the fight against climate change with 52% green energy target by 2020 and Africa’s first city cycle hire schemeAs the host of this year’s COP22 climate change conference in Marrakech, Morocco has been keen to demonstrate its green credentials and make this COP the “African COP”.In the past year, Morocco has banned the use of plastic bags, launched new plans for extending the urban tram networks in Casablanca and Rabat, started the process of replacing its dirty old fleet of buses and taxis, launched Africa’s first city bicycle hire scheme, and launched a new initiative – the “Adaptation of African Agriculture” – to help the continent’s farmers adjust to climate change. Continue reading...

Climate change and deforestation mean people who once lived among trees now go to bed not knowing if their homes will be lost to the desert by morning. Villagers are learning how to adapt and stop the sandStanding next to a thin belt of rattling trees that represents the only line of green in vast stretches of orange desert, 70-year-old Hamud El-Nour Hamdallah recalls a time when this area in Sudan’s River Nile state was dense forest. If you had not found Goz El Halg village by nightfall, you would have to wait until morning to find your way out.But decades of drought and deforestation have allowed sand to roll through the desert and swallow homes and farmland. Hamdallah and his community now go to bed not knowing if they will make it out of their homes the next day. Continue reading...

Trump’s plans to roll back environmental protections seem worse than many feared

Animals are still being killed in horrifying numbers despite global efforts to stop the poaching crisis, says prince at Hanoi summitPoachers killing Africa’s rhinos and elephants are still one step ahead of efforts to stop the multibillion wildlife trade, Prince William has warned.Traffickers have become more sophisticated and increasingly brutal, and animals are dying in “horrifying numbers”, the Duke of Cambridge told an international wildlife summit in Hanoi, Vietnam on Thursday. Continue reading...

Conservation groups warn watered down native vegetation rules threaten wildlife and will increase greenhouse gas emissionsThe New South Wales government’s controversial biodiversity laws have passed their final hurdle in parliament, with farmers winning greater power to clear their land from next year.

Will the new mayor uphold his election pledges and prove he is serious about improving cycling in the capital, asks London’s former cycling commissionerOver the next few years, the future of cycling in Britain may depend on what happens in London, the place that has done more than any other to build segregated bike lanes.Only six months after they opened, the new tracks have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams – the Embankment one carries an astonishing 3,000 people an hour in the peaks, according to Transport for London’s Alan Bristow. Continue reading...

International prize goes to US designer who was worried about using bike-hire schemes without a helmetThe inventor of a foldable bicycle helmet has won a £30,000 prize to take it towards commercialisation.The “EcoHelmet” is the brainchild of Isis Shiffer, a 28-year-old designer and bike enthusiast from New York who came up with the idea after she began using city bike-hire schemes but was worried about cycling without a helmet. Continue reading...

Chapel Fell, Weardale The male’s black and white plumage is striking, but at close range a greyhen is captivatingly beautifulEvery autumn, for the past four years, I’ve seen black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) here. Always single birds, most likely wanderers from the lek at Langdon Beck in Teesdale, just a few miles south.This morning there were six – four males and two females, in a sheltered hollow in rough pasture, halfway down the fellside. In the distance they could have been mistaken for large free-range chickens, but just a glance through binoculars revealed the distinctive profile and plumage of the male black grouse, striking even in autumn. Continue reading...

Marrakech communique commits countries including Australia to reducing emissions from the oil and gas industryAustralia has signed an international agreement committing to reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, and calling for other countries to do the same, sparking claims it is being hypocritical and could “seriously damage our reputation in climate talks”.The Marrakech communique, signed this week at the first meeting of parties to the Paris agreement in Morocco, commits a coalition of countries including Australia to take measures to reduce methane emissions in the oil and gas industry. Continue reading...

Energy minister Josh Frydenberg raises concern with American counterpart over US activists seeking to stop Adani’s giant Carmichael coalmineAustralia has used a summit on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to lobby the US energy minister in support of the development of one of the world’s largest coalmines.The move, by the Australian environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, at the Marrekech meeting, won Australia the “fossil of the day” award, announced daily by the Climate Action Network to the countries that perform the worst at UN climate talks. Continue reading...

Couple warns of continuing danger from second world war-era nuclear weapons program around St Louis, where uranium was processedA Missouri couple says their home is contaminated with dangerously high levels of radioactive waste left over from the US government’s second world war-era atomic weapons program.In a lawsuit filed in the St Louis County circuit court on Tuesday, Robbin and Mike Dailey of Bridgeton say dust samples collected from their kitchen and basement were found to contain the radioactive element thorium-230 at levels about 200 times higher than normal “background” levels. In a move they hope shines a light on the continuing impact of the country’s early nuclear weapons program on their midwestern city, the Daileys named nine companies in their lawsuit that they say are responsible for decades of negligence that led to the contamination of their property. Continue reading...

US secretary of state John Kerry urges countries to treat the earth’s changing climate as an urgent threat as he addresses the uncertainty created by the election of Donald Trump. ‘Obviously an election took place in my country, and I know it’s left some here and elsewhere feeling uncertain about the future,’ he told the audience, before reiterating that a majority of citizens in the US believe climate change is a real threat

World Coal Association boss Benjamin Sporton puts his case for a place at the UN climate talks, but won’t criticise climate science denial supportersAn awful lot of people would really like it if Benjamin Sporton went home and never came back.Sporton is the boss of the World Coal Association and he’s walking the halls of the United Nations climate change talks. Continue reading...

Secretary of state says the outgoing Obama administration is determined to prevent Trump withdrawing the US from the landmark dealJohn Kerry has signalled that the outgoing Obama administration is preparing a fight to ensure that Donald Trump does not withdraw the US from the landmark Paris agreement, to prevent catastrophic climate change.“This is bigger than one person, one president,” the US secretary of state said in Marrakech, before his last address to the UN climate summit being held there. “We have to figure out how we’re going to stop this.” Continue reading...

Researchers from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna and the University of Oxford have shown that Goffin’s cockatoos can make and use elongated tools out of different materials. In video footage released on Wednesday, the cockatoo makes tools from wood and twigs, but also from cardboard, suggesting the birds can anticipate how the tools will be used Continue reading...

Conservationists say the proposed Trans Mountain Expansion project poses the greatest risk yet to a killer whale population on the edge of extinctionOn one shore there are snow-capped mountains. On the other side loom towering skyscrapers. These churning waters off the coast of Vancouver are marked by a constant flow of ferries and containers ships – but they are also home to 80 or so orcas.Known as the southern resident killer whales the group has long had a fraught relationship with the urban sprawl they live alongside, leaving them on the knife’s edge of extinction. Continue reading...

Consortium of groups propose new swath of national parks be designated and put into the care of native title holdersFive million hectares of unmanaged pastoral leases in outback Western Australia would become national park land under a proposal being put before the Barnett government to expand the Indigenous ranger program and create more than 200 jobs.The 66 leases are dotted throughout the Pilbara, midwest, and Gascoyne regions, spanning a 1,000km range from Geraldton to Port Hedland and stretching inland about 6ookm to East Murchison in the south and Roy Hill in the north. Continue reading...

Trainers in Odessa say sessions can help veterans, as well as children with learning difficulties, but there are concerns about the animals’ welfareIvan Golubev was a hyperactive child until his school in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine was attacked by gunfire. The trauma left him unable to to speak.A few months later he was on holiday in Odessa and his mother, Anna, decided to try dolphin therapy. “By the end of the first session he started talking again, and I just couldn’t stop crying,” she says, as her son splashes round in the pool as part of his follow-up treatment. Continue reading...

Former Australian prime minister says the election of climate denier Donald Trump will help put the issue into perspectiveTony Abbott says the “moral panic” about climate change has been completely over the top and that he never thought it was the most serious issue faced by Australia.He said the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States was encouraging because the Republican – who has said that he believes global warming is a scam – would put climate change in better perspective. Continue reading...

International Energy Agency chief says current government pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions are inadequateThe Paris agreement on climate change risks failure unless countries come forward with more ambitious and detailed plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the world’s energy watchdog has warned.The agreement, reached almost a year ago, is only a “framework”, said the International Energy Agency on Wednesday, and requires sweeping policy changes among governments around the world to put its aims into force. Continue reading...

From next year, one of the world’s longest artificial ski slopes will run from the roof of the city’s new ultra-green waste-to-energy power plantDenmark may be famous for many innovations – Lego, hygge, Noma restaurant – but skiing is not one of the things that springs to mind when you think of this fairly flat and not particularly snowy country.There is one short natural slope – at Roskilde, west of Copenhagen – that sometimes has enough snow for skiing – but from next year locals and visitors will be able to get their downhill kicks closer to the capital. Continue reading...

There’s nothing sinister in all of this. Fossil fuel charity organisations are always at climate change talks – they’re just trying to help!

Herefordshire Massive oaks, neolithic tombs and a farmer on a quad bike checking his sheep are a few of the highlights on this 12-day walkOften within sight of the Malverns, Black Mountains or Radnor Forest, our 12-day walk along the Herefordshire Trail leads from place to place around the county. Massive oaks used to be pollarded, and, in derelict orchards, clumps of mistletoe colonise old trees. Wayside hedgerows are loaded with haws, rotting blackberries, holly and spindle berries; crab apples strew rough lanes and bullaces keep yellow leaves and wrinkled purple fruit.Churches, from Dore Abbey to Pudleston, are decorated with flowers, fruit and swags of hops for harvest festivals. Pheasants bred for shoots feed and shelter in scrubby woods and, above Leintwardine, mature birds scuttle and glide between coverts of maize as five red kites wheel overhead. Continue reading...

Frank Bainimarama calls on Donald Trump to make a ‘personal change of heart and public change of policy on climate change’ at the United Nations climate change conference in Morocco. ‘Please take another look at the overwhelming scientific consensus of the man-made effects of global warming,’ he says, before inviting the US president-elect to see the communities that have been moved out of the way of the rising seas and meet the families of those killed by cyclone Winston Continue reading...

Australian businesses can take action on climate change by supporting Indigenous carbon farming while contributing to sustainable development goalsThere’s a touch of irony in the fact the Australian government has invested $200m in the international Green Climate Fund, a United Nations fund to assist developing countries in adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change.There is, however, no equivalent investment fund by the government, or corporate Australia, towards developing sustainable economies on Aboriginal lands through one of those mitigation practices, namely carbon farming. Continue reading...

Energy Transfer Partners accused the Obama administration of being motivated purely by politics and said it would pursue rights to build controversial oil lineThe operator of the Dakota Access pipeline has asked a federal judge to approve immediate construction under the Missouri river just one day after the US government delayed the oil project that has faced international opposition from indigenous groups and environmental activists.Energy Transfer Partners, the owner of the $3.7bn pipeline, accused President Barack Obama’s administration of being “motivated purely by politics” and said it would “vigorously pursue its legal rights” to build under the river that provides the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s water supply. Continue reading...

Government subsidy to gas and oil companies undermine Trudeau’s plan to put national price on carbon dioxide by 2018, environmental report warnedCanada’s attempt to act on climate change is being undermined by $3.3bn in government subsidies flowing to oil and gas producers in the country a year, a new report has warned.

Nasa released data earlier this year showing that global surface temperatures across land and ocean in February were a whopping 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for that same month from 1951 to 1980. As the COP22 comes to a close, it’s time we think hard, and think creatively, about the way forward and start preparing for new initiatives. Building on the impressive success of COP21 in Paris, many political and business leaders as well as representatives of civil society seem eager to engage. That is a good thing, but it is not enough.For better and, increasingly, for worse, our global system of governance rests overwhelmingly on territorial nation-states. In this system, each country’s government represents its own national interest. No one represents humanity as a whole. Such devotion to narrow interests leads to a host of profound problems, well known to economists and students of human behaviour. In various contexts they are known as “the tragedy of the commons”, “the prisoner’s dilemma”, “exporting externalities”, and “free riding”. When asked to act for the common good, nation-states are predisposed to echo Cain’s notorious response: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Continue reading...

Authorities in Iranian capital forced to take emergency action amid unprecedented levels of air pollutionAt this time of the year, citizens of Tehran are accustomed to a thick curtain of fog that falls across the city, veiling everything from the 435 metre-tall Milad tower to the nearby Alborz mountains.This week, however, the blanket of smog smothering the Iranian capital has been blamed for a string of deaths and prompted unprecedented emergency measures by the city’s authorities. Continue reading...

My friend Alan Boatman, who has died suddenly in his sleep aged 46, ran his own environmental consultancy, Geo-Sys, in Laos, working on projects identifying and mitigating the impact of resource exploitation in this remarkable area of south-east Asia. Recognising the depth of his experience, the United Nations Drug Control Programme hired Alan to conduct opium surveys in Afghanistan and Laos. At one stage this led to an uncomfortable disagreement with the authorities, as his figures from the field research differed from theirs, but Alan was unmoved and held his ground.Alan developed a sense of adventure from an early age. He was born in Gibraltar, son of Ian, who worked on overseas projects for Cable & Wireless, and Carolyn, a poet, and was brought up in the Gambia and St Lucia, with two sisters, Kelly and Dale. Alan went to school in Essex, at Holmwood House and Felsted school. He then did a variety of jobs, including working in insurance, in a ski resort in France, as a deckhand on a private yacht and helping to open a night club in Antigua. Continue reading...

Nottinghamshire council approves iGas planning application to drill two wells at Misson, the third UK site to be approved for exploration this yearAn energy company has been given the green light to explore for shale gas in the East Midlands, the first step towards the site being potentially fracked in the future.Nottinghamshire council approved iGas’s planning application to vertically and horizontally drill two wells at Misson in north Nottinghamshire, by a vote of seven to four. Continue reading...

Plans for a continuous route along the Chicago River include cycling on floating pontoons – like the controversial Thames Deckway in London. But with the US city’s cycle numbers growing, this long-held ambition could yet be realisedCycling is no stranger to invention, from the steady swell of Kickstarter campaigns to the almost innumerable cycleways dreamed up to be dangled, dug and floated on various bodies of water around the world. The latest, a 6.5 mile, $84m (£67m) floating pontoon, is currently being imagined for the Chicago River, between the city’s Chinatown and Ravenswood Manor.The RiverRide, to link Horner and Ping Tom Park in Chicago, was dreamed up by James Price Chuck, investor and co-founder of Second Shore. It’s a six- to 12ft-wide, steel reinforced concrete pontoon, intended as a commuter and leisure route through the city. Continue reading...

‘Grave consequences’ for food supply with wheat production halved since the start of the war and the area of fields planted at an all-time lowFood production in Syria is edging nearer to collapse with wheat production having halved since the start of the war and the area of fields planted now at an all-time low, according to the UN.The World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned of grave consequences for the availability of food in the warn-torn region unless immediate assistance is provided to farmers. Lack of food could add to the 11 million Syrians already displaced by five years of conflict, they said. Continue reading...

The world’s temperature is running at 1.2C above pre-industrial levels after another year of record-breaking heat affecting people around the worldLatest figures from the UN’s World Meterological Organization (WMO) released on Monday showed that 2016 would very likely become the hottest year on record. This is a new high for the third year running, and means that 16 of the 17 hottest years on record have been this century.This year saw searing heatwaves from South Africa to India, Arctic ice reach its equal second-lowest extent and coral mortality of up to 50% in parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Continue reading...

The president-elect is surrounded with fossil fuel industry insiders, making a roll-back of climate change regulations likely. We can’t let this standSince election day, the public rejection of Donald Trump and his politics has been vast. Now, as the reality of his impending presidency settles in, those of us who reject the racist, misogynist, anti-environmentalist agenda he promises to usher in are left with one, glaring course of action: we have to organize and mobilize.Related: Trump could reverse 'dramatic' progress on clean energy, experts fear Continue reading...

UN’s Ban Ki-moon expresses hopes that the US president-elect will drop plans to quit a global accord aimed at weaning the world off fossil fuelsThe UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, said on Tuesday that action on climate change has become “unstoppable“, and he expressed hopes that US president-elect, Donald Trump, would drop plans to quit a global accord aimed at weaning the world off fossil fuels.At a meeting of almost 200 nations in Morocco to work out ways to implement the 2015 Paris agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Ban said US companies, states and cities were all pushing to limit global warming. Continue reading...